Explores international relations and current events; attends Stanford and Berkeley’s Model UN Conferences, taking the roles of UN diplomats and working with students from all over Northern California to resolve global issues.

The Science Alliance club acts a hybrid science promotion club. The group will work to find local research opportunities, help with the Science Fair, and compete at the Science Olympiad, a national science competition in the spring.

Builds, designs, and programs robots for different competitions and activities at school. No previous knowledge of programming or designing robots is necessary.

In 2014, a group of York students founded Deus Ex Machina, the school’s first FRC team. Our team won the Rookie All-Star Award and advanced to the international championship in St. Louis, Missouri. Since all but two members graduated, 2015 was akin to a second rookie year for York. Fortunately, recruitment from all grade levels in 2016 allowed us to build up experience to ensure the continued existence of the team. When the 2017 FRC season started, returning students made up nearly half our team. At the end of our 2017 season we received the GM Industrial Design Award at the Silicon Valley Regional, one of only two design awards given at arguably the most competitive regional event in the country.

We are preparing for the 2018 FRC season with 12 experienced, returning students. Thanks to the assistance from two helpful mentors (Dr. Tim Stanton and Duane Davis, both from NPS), we can provide new team members the opportunity to participate in a multidisciplinary effort that goes well beyond the building of a robot. Consisting of numerous subgroups—management and fundraising, graphic and web design, engineering, programming, and more—the team not only constructs a working robot, but also gains invaluable real-world skills. In addition to participating in a competition, we are learning to collaborate—perhaps the most important skill gained throughout the course of the entire season—and to work closely with other clubs in our region to advance the aims of FIRST.